Ghana Raps Donald Trump To Allow Deportees Return Home With Belongings
Undocumented Ghanaians living in the United States of America (USA) can hope for a sign of relief following a step by the Government of Ghana to negotiate with the President Donald J. Trump administration to allow the rest of deportees take their belongings along with them when they are deported.
The diplomatic talk, if successful, will ensure that deportees do not come home with nothing except what they wear when arrested.
Speaking exclusively in an interview with the DAILY HERITAGE, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said Ghana as a sovereign state could not make any input to stop the American government from deporting undocumented Ghanaians as the action is backed by the legal requirements of the US.
She said unless President Trump changes his stands on issues of deportation, Ghanaians could only hope and pray that they are not arrested in the US and deported.
The Minister said the attempt by the government to hold discussions with the US government is to ensure that deportees could have something to begin life with when they come home.
The Foreign Minister disclosed this to the paper after attending the 2017 Diaspora Homecoming Summit held in Accra on Friday, July 7, 2017.
The issue of deportation of undocumented immigrants was a key campaign message of then candidate Trump, who led the Republican Party in the 2016 US elections.
In June this year, 75 Ghanaian immigrants who had lived in the USA for a number of years without being documented were deported.
They arrived at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra in handcuffs.
They had applied for asylum in the USA but their applications were rejected and were subsequently deported.
In April this year, the US Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Robert P. Jackson, said about 7,000 Ghanaians living illegally in the US were being processed for deportation.
“In fact, about 7,000 of them are currently at different stages of the deportation process. And we are not apologetic about that,” Mr Jackson told journalists in the Brong Ahafo Region.
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